In the Netflix series “Unorthodox,” a young Hasidic woman flees her husband and family and the oppressive strictures of ultra-orthodox life in New York and seeks a new life in Berlin. She struggles with a modern society and her own fears and limitations, but slowly, step by step, gains the confidence to survive. At a pivotal moment in her battle for personal freedom, she puts on a pair of blue jeans under her orthodox prescribed skirt. In the following sequences, she wears the jeans and contemporary clothes as she slips off the burdens of ancient customs and rules. It seems to me that restrictive blue jeans signify freedom from restriction.
How we deal with existential fears and mysteries is the subject of Matthew Hutson’s The Seven Laws of Magical Thinking. Hutson doesn’t condemn magical thinking or consider it unusual and thinks it may well be an essential part of a healthy emotional life. We hold tight to things that help us make sense of life. An old ring that a grandmother had, a numbered shirt worn in a winning game, my dad’s dog-tags. Significant life changes are usually accompanied by things that don’t change. There are wedding rings, coming of age body alterations of all types, maybe a tattoo of Amanda (maybe have that one replaced), the holy water of baptism, and, in the end, a granite tombstone. Ancient handprints of Hindu women made just before sati. Who doesn’t save a special toy belonging to a now grown child or a wedding gown or a Louisville Slugger from a home run? And I missed my old VW bug named ‘Liz’.
My old school friend George told me once about a pair of special blue jeans, the almost lucky jeans. George was, and still is, an artist who made imaginative and beautiful objects of clay and took compelling photography. As a starving art student at Florida Atlantic University, he slept in the pottery building or the fieldhouse where there were nice showers. After graduation, he still struggled to survive until his art was recognized. I lost track of him for a while after college but connected a little later. Then he said he was a painter. He painted the lines on the highway for the Ohio road department and was paid well during warm months. In the winter and spring, he received enough unemployment money to make ends meet while living in a barn of an Amish farm in Ohio. He traded a little help around the farm for free accommodations in the hayloft while doing what art work he could.
And as he prepared to leave for his recall to work, the farmer’s daughter comes up to say goodbye. I asked George if this was the start of a farmer’s daughter joke but he swore to its truth. The young woman of course was wearing her traditional long skirt and Amish clothing. She asked for one small favor. George, take off your jeans. George is thinking: my lucky day! I guess I’ve hit the jackpot. The farmer’s daughter slipped off her skirt and took the blue jeans and zipped them up snug. Then she slowly takes them back off and gives them back. She says, George, I just wanted to know for once what it feels like to wear blue jeans.
The jeans must be long gone now and George is a successful artist and does have the good luck and steady income of an art museum director. I don’t know what he wears to work.
Two Strikes 